


Skittles and Soulmates

by areyoureddiekids



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Cute, Fluff, M/M, Soulmate AU, they're so effin cute wtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-03
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-08 09:26:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,774
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12251574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/areyoureddiekids/pseuds/areyoureddiekids
Summary: When both you and your soulmate are sixteen, you're unable to lie to one another.When Richie presses his forehead to Eddie’s and asks, ‘Do you really hate it when I call you Ed’s?’Eddie lets out an annoyed breath and grumbles out, ‘…No’.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt: 'Hi! I was wondering if you could do a Reddie soulmate AU! One where you are unable to lie to your soulmate, but that doesn't start until you know who your soulmate is. So like maybe they also get matching tattoos that don't appear until the two soulmates share a significant experience (like facing pennywise). Then when the tattoos appear that is when they are unable to lie to each other? Idk if that males since and you can tweak it if you need to. Thank you!!'  
> Follow my tumblr and request me shit - areyoureddiekids!

Eddie Kaspbrak and Richie Tozier were perhaps the oddest friends one might find.

Firstly, their dress sense was entirely different. Even in their first year as Freshman High Schoolers, Eddie refused to ditch those fucking tiny shorts that were always paired with some pastel coloured jumper or shirt. Richie, on the other hand, would usually sport some horrible knitted thing with holes in, a brightly patterned button up, or torn up jeans with a hefty pair of boots. 

Secondly, their sense of humours, whilst often very similar, could be so different. Eddie enjoyed Bill’s quick quips, or Ben’s light sense of humour that reminded Eddie of something a dad might say, if he had one. Richie preferred Stan and Bev’s dry and crude humour that, in Eddie’s opinion, Richie had to a new fucking degree. 

Thirdly…well, shit, they were just two very different individuals. Eddie liked reading fictional books and listening to old disco music, and Richie liked going to the arcade and listening to rock or grunge. Eddie liked exploring the fields by Mike’s farm, and Richie liked driving at seventy down some back roads with Nirvana blaring out of his pickup trucks speakers. Often, though, he would have either Eddie or Bev with him. Or both.

Richie didn’t like Bev like that, though. He just liked to hang out with her, because she liked cool music, smoked and was a pretty tight fixture as the only girl in the Losers Club. Plus, she had already found her soulmate. Ben turned sixteen two months before Bev, and the moment the girl turned sixteen, every time she tried to lie to Ben’s face, only the truth would come out. That meant they were soulmates, and that was that. Richie had practically picked Ben off the floor he had hugged him so hard because, shit, the poor kid had been pining after Bev since they were twelve.

Richie, having turned sixteen just one month prior, was still to find his. As were the rest of the Losers.

He didn’t really mind, though. He would find them eventually, and he knew they would be cool as fuck. Until then, he was perfectly content with getting through High School and then the fuck out of Derry.

‘Earth to Trashmouth’. Richie snaps to attention and turns to Bev, who is waving a crudely painted fingernail in front of his face. There were little stars drawn across her wrist. He’d seen her doing them in Chem. ‘Space out, four-eyes?’ she grins, and Richie elbows her in the side.

They’re sitting in Bill’s basement, spread across a ratty couch and the floor, and it’s Eddie’s sixteenth. It had been a small surprise gathering, but Richie knows from the politely surprised smile on Eddie’s face when Bill had led him down the stairs into the basement that he wasn’t surprised at all. Still, if anything, Eddie was a polite little fucker to anyone who deserved it. 

‘Piss off, Bev,’ he laughs, leaning back against the sofa with her, with his arm thrown around the back of it. Eddie’s sitting cross legged on the floor with Bill, Stan and Mike, as Ben sits idly beside Bev with their fingers interlocked. Richie watches as Eddie unwraps Bill’s present and smiles when Eddie’s face lights up. 

‘Shit, Bill!’ Eddie proclaims, and yanks the yellow shirt from the wrapping paper and nudging Bill’s leg with his stark white trainer. He’s wearing those fucking knee-high socks that, for some reason, drive Richie mad. ‘The Beatles? That’s so cool, man, thank you!’

Bill shrugs and smiles and Richie nearly rolls his eyes because, shit, ain’t Bill just the nicest fucking person around?

Stan gets him a daily planner, with a little bit for pills at the front. Ben gets him a Weezer poster. Mike gets him a new bell for his bike. Bev gets him some strawberry scented hand sanitizer, a framed picture from when they were all twelve, and a soft looking flower crown made from paper and wire and cardboard.

Richie’s eyes fucking boggle when Eddie slips it on at Bev’s insistence, and Stan rolls his eyes and says that Eddie can act like even more of a Princess now.

Richie hardly says anything because, holy shit, Eddie looked prettier than usual (and Eddie is pretty, everyone fucking knows that) and he might be having a heart attack as Eddie sits there, in his fucking pastel blue jumper, and grins. ‘How do I look, huh?’ he asks, and Richie doesn’t know if Eddie is talking to him or not, but the little twerp catches his gaze so Richie just has to fucking answer, doesn’t he?

‘Beautiful,’ he says, legs spread out and thumbs sticking through the holds in the sleeve of his AC/DC jumper. He stalls when the words come out, and Eddie looks at him with wide brown eyes and glowing cheeks and Bev is staring at the side of Richie’s face with a shit-eating grin.

‘You do look pretty cute, Eddie,’ Mike laughs, after staring at Richie for a solid few moments.

The moment is over and the laughing continues, but Eddie can’t help but eye the flabbergasted looking Richie who is staring hard at Bev with wide eyes as the others talk and shift and giggle.

‘My turn,’ Richie says, blowing the moment away and reaches into the pocket of his jeans. He shifts to access the present, causing Bev and Ben to huff and move to make room for him. ‘It’s not as good as Bill’s present, mind. Fucking over achiever’.

‘S-suck my dick, R-Richie,’ Bill shoots back.

‘Take me out to dinner first, Denbrough,’ Richie grins back, smiling easily as the others laugh. Finally, he leans down and hands Eddie a small, brown wrapped box. Eddie knows what Richie’s presents are like – they can go from sweets to cards to a bottle of beer. Never very thoughtful, but something Eddie will enjoy all the same.

He’s never been one to care for material things, anyway.

He rips past the packaging and gets to the box, and Richie watches with an odd kind of anxiousness as Eddie pulls out of the jar of assorted Skittles, Eddie’s favourite. Each colour was put together nicely, from orange to yellow to red. Eddie looks up and Richie shrugs, cheeks warm. ‘They’re your favourite,’ he points out lightly, chewing at his thumbnail.

‘I don’t think I’ve seen you put that much effort into anything,’ Stan pipes up. Richie idly flips him in the bird.

Eddie thanks him and chews his lip, before reaching into the box and retrieving a tape. He scans the songs quickly before grinning. ‘This is good, Richie! You didn’t just put your shit on there – I actually like half this stuff!’

Richie huffs. ‘My music taste isn’t shit’. Bev hums in question next to him. ‘Oh, fuck off. Happy, Eds?’

Eddie looks around at the lot of them and nods, smiling. ‘I am. Thanks, guys. And don’t call me Ed’s, douche,’ he shoots back at Richie, who merely kicks Eddie lightly with the point of his boot and grins. 

‘C’mon, Ed’s. You know you love it, right?’

Eddie rolls his eyes and sighs, but the words that come out of his mouth don’t seem to match his expression at all. ‘Yeah, but whatever’. Eddie, with that fucking flower crown on his head and his cheeks as hot as the sun, stares in utter horror at the slowly grinning Richie Tozier.

‘I fucking knew it!’ the dark, curly haired boy whoops. ‘You all heard that, right?’ The others, though, are nodding and sharing looks, secret smiles twitching onto their faces. Bill looks about ready to wet himself. Eddie and Richie hardly notice, as one looks in horror at the grinning other. ‘Ha! I’m never letting this one go. ED’S’.

‘Shut up, Richie!’ Eddie wails, the confused look falling away as he glares at the older boy. 

‘C’mon…Ed’s’.

It’s Bev who tells them both to shut the fuck up, as Mike moves to switch the radio up and silence the two. Once Eddie and Richie get going with a fight, they could never be fucking stopped.

The night ends at 8, because it’s a school night, and Bev and Ben leave first, holding hands and thanking Bill. Next goes Mike, then Stan, and then Richie is sighing and thanking Bill as the boy cleans up the wrapping paper. Eddie gathers his presents up into a plastic bag and nods, before grinning at Bill and telling him he’ll wear the shirt to school tomorrow.

‘I’ll walk you home, Ed’s,’ Richie says, shrugging on his baggy denim jacket over his jumper and pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. It’s dark and cold and he never really let’s Eddie walk home alone. Eddie says he just does it to annoy Sonia, his mom. 

Eddie looks like he might say something, but he just shrugs instead and bids Bill farewell as they ascend the stairs, saying goodbye to Mr and Mrs Denbrough and Bill’s little brother, Georgie, who was tucked up beside his mother on the sofa.

‘I can walk home alone, you know. You don’t always have to do this when we hang out,’ Eddie says, bag swinging at his side. Richie glances down to look at the now sixteen year old and shrugs, hand buried in the pockets of his jacket.

‘I know. I like walking you home’. He stalls, not knowing why the fuck those words just fell out of his mouth, but shrugs it off. He always says things without thinking, anyway. 

‘O-oh…’ Eddie stutters, staring in bemusement up at Richie. ‘Cool?'

‘Cool,’ Richie repeats. ‘Did you notice I put It’s Raining Men on the tape?’ Eddie nods and grins, because they both remember the time they got drunk in Richie’s room and blared the song out whilst his mom slept downstairs. ‘Did you also notice you’ve got that flower crown on still?’ Richie snorts and nods to the crown sitting prettily atop Eddie's curly haired head.

Eddie stalls and snatches it off, looking around them to see if any Derry citizens were walking about. ‘Shit – why didn’t you say sooner, dick?’

‘I told you – because it looks nice’. Richie actually stops stock still that time, back rigid and mouth pushed into a harsh line. Eddie stops only a few steps ahead, looking equally bewildered.

‘…I thought you said beautiful, before,’ Eddie murmurs lightly, shocked, shoving the crown into the bag slowly.

Richie clears his throat. ‘I guess I did, yeah’.

‘You’re being weird today,’ Eddie pipes up. 

Richie grimaces. ‘Yeah, I know’. They stare at each other for a few more moments as Richie worries his bottom lip, eyebrows drawn together tightly. ‘Eddie…can you try and lie to me?’

And Eddie stares at him, eyes wide and pupils blown and cheeks suddenly feeling flushed and hot. ‘W-what?’

Richie shakes his head. ‘Fuck it, I’ll do it’. He pulls his hands form his pockets and clears his throat, stare so serious that Eddie might have laughed at any other moment. ‘Eddie, I-’ And then he chokes, swallows, and looks at Eddie like he’s a fucking alien. ‘Oh, what the fuck. I can't’.

‘No way,’ Eddie laughs. ‘Oh, shit’. Eddie peers at Richie then, a little smirk making its way onto his face. ‘Do you really think I look like a dork when I wear my shorts?’ he asks, and the silence of the street is pressing.

‘No,’ Richie shrugs. ‘It just pisses me off that Danny Dean in our English class always fucking stares at your legs’. Richie blinks. ‘What the fuck,’ he repeats, lips twitching as a surprised smile makes its way onto his face. ‘Eddie,’ he breathes, taking a single step forward. 'Do you realise...I mean...what the fuck?'

'Stop ruining the fucking moment,' Eddie snaps, trainers pressing against gravel as he takes an equal step forward.

Richie Tozer and Eddie Kaspbrak may be very different people. Richie might like Nirvana and Eddie might like The Weather Girls, but one very fundamental part of their friendship was that they were most definitely soulmates, and they were most definitely in love with each other.

When they kiss, in that empty street at 8:16 PM on a Tuesday night, their tilted world rightens. When Eddie clutches Richie’s jacket and forgets about mouth-germs and Richie’s poor dental care and presses his mouth hungrily to the Trashmouth’s, his world rightens. When Richie presses his forehead to Eddie’s and asks, ‘Do you really hate it when I call you Ed’s?’

Eddie lets out an annoyed breath and grumbles out, ‘…No’.

Richie's world rightens.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did a part 2 because I just couldn't help myself! Again, holla at me on my tumblr - areyoureddiekids!

It takes Richie exactly two weeks after he and Eddie realised they were soulmates, to also realise that he was hopelessly in love with the little shit.

It wasn’t something that one should just assume, just because they had found their soulmate. Some people found their soulmates and fucking hated them (Richie thinks not-so subtly of his parents here). Some people took years to fall in love with them, or even find them. Some people, like Eddie and Richie, had known each other for years and fell in love slowly, not all at once.

Richie supposed that they were pretty fucking lucky in that respect. Because of that, it took him only two weeks, after they realised they were tied at the soul, to realise he loved the dark haired, brave boy.

They’re sitting in the Aladdin when he realises. Eddie is pressed next to him, head resting on Richie’s shoulders. Next to Eddie is Ben and Bev, then Mike, then Stan, and then Bill. They’re watching some shitty Batman film, but Richie is hardly paying attention because he’s staring down at the top of Eddie’s brown-haired head with a look of utter wonder on his face.

Eddie is breathing lightly, and Richie can just about see the way his eyes flicker about the screen and how he chews slowly at his bottom lip. Their hands are joined and resting atop the armrest. Richie can’t help but notice how much bigger is own hand seems in comparison to Eddie. The sight, oddly, makes his heart swell.

He’s such a fucking sap now. What the fuck.

Feeling someone’s gaze on him, his eyes flicker to look over Eddie head, and he sees Bev staring back at him from across Ben. There’s a shit-eating grin on her face and a sparkle in her blue eyes as she watches Richie. Richie, in return, pulls a face and mouths for her to fuck off.

Eddie must feel Richie moving, because he withdraws his head from Richie’s shoulder and blinks up at the older boy, his brown eyes glassy and the light from the screen reflecting onto his face. ‘What’s up?’ he whispers and his face is so close that Richie could count the pale freckles that are sprinkled across Eddie’s nose, if he wanted to.

The words fall out of his mouth before he can even think about it. ‘Bev’s making fun of me for staring at you like a lovesick dick’. Richie sighs as Eddie grins and snorts lowly, before planting his head back onto Richie’s shoulder. Sometimes, the whole ‘not lying’ thing could be really fucking embarrassing. Still, though, it was handy sometimes. Like when Eddie admitted he liked being called Ed’s, or a few days ago when Richie asked Eddie jokingly if he looked good (he had planted a silly looking hat on his head from the shop they were in) and Eddie had immediately replied, ‘Literally always’.

Richie had teased him about it all fucking day.

Still, though, now Richie had another thing to worry about when it came to blurting shit out to Eddie. He didn’t know, not fully, if Eddie loved him yet. It scared the shit out of Richie, because what if it was too soon? What if Eddie was still getting used to the idea of them being together? His Ma hadn’t been happy about the whole thing, shouting and screaming that Richie was dirty and germ-ridden and an awful influence on her sweet boy.

Richie had kissed away the angry tears that stained Eddie’s cheeks after that. He’d been waiting in Eddie’s light blue bedroom, having snuck through the window, and heard the whole thing.

Richie didn’t know how to tell people he loved them. He knew how to act on love and hold Eddie like he was the best thing in the world (they had been created to love each other, hadn’t they? That’s was soulmates were all about, or so they’d learnt in History), but he didn’t know how to tell the boy that.

He barely watches the rest of the film as he chews on his thumbnail with his free hand and jumps when the lights in the theatre switch on and the credits roll. ‘The fuck?’ he mumbles. ‘It’s over?’

Eddie pulls away from Richie and stretches out his legs, a bemused look on his face as he eyes his boyfriend. ‘Yeah, you fucking weirdo. What’s up with you?’

The others are standing and talking about how good the film was (Stan and Bill agree that it was the best one yet) and Richie is slamming his hand across his mouth, because suddenly, he’s starting to blurt out that what’s up with him is that he doesn’t know how to tell Eddie he loves him.

Eddie stares down at him with dark brows drawn together. He understands this action. They’ve had to do it man a time in public to stop from saying anything inappropriate (like when Eddie asked Richie what he wanted to do after school in front of the other Losers, and Richie got just a bit too open and honest. Stan had looked utterly scandalised, and Richie had blushed to his fucking roots).

Instead of asking anything else, Eddie nods and shrugs. ‘Later,’ he tells Richie, before grabbing Richie’s hand and hoisting him up. The others follow them out of the theatre as they push through the crowd, and Richie feels just a little bit better and less like an idiot because he has Eddie’s hand in his own again.

When they get outside into the cool and crisp air, Mike sighs and says he should go and help at his farm. Bill nods and says he has to help Georgie with some of his homework, and Stan agrees that he wouldn’t mind coming along for that, too. It wasn’t a secret that all the Losers adored Bill’s little brother – even Eddie, who thought children were germ-ridden and gross. Ben and Bev bid the others farewell, and Richie rolls his eyes when Bev winks at Richie and sticks her tongue out, because of course she fucking knows what’s on his mind.

Bev knows everything. He’s sure of it.

‘We’re gonna go, too,’ Eddie pipes up, hand still in Richie’s, and the others nod. After Eddie’s birthday (the day they realised they were soulmates) the Losers had all come to school the next day and grinned and clapped when Eddie and Richie approached them with clasped hands.

‘T-thank God,’ Bill had chuckled. ‘We k-knew you guys were soulm-mates!’

They all go their desperate ways, and Richie has his mouth clamped shut and his palm sweaty in Eddie’s. Should he tell Eddie? He glances sideways once again, heart all but melting when he sees that Eddie’s grey jumper is far too fucking big for him, and his curly hair is blowing lightly in the chilly wind.

Fuck. Why does he have to be so fucking lovely looking?

They get around a corner where the street meets a long plain of grass, and Eddie tugs Richie over to it before leading him over to a bench. Richie follows, knowing what was coming and almost fucking dreading it, because he’s not fucking good at this kind of thing. Soulmates sometimes didn’t love each other at all. His parents were proof enough of that. Their souls seemed to be bound from their mutual dislike of each other, love of vodka, and dislike of their only son.

‘I’m going to ask you again,’ Eddie says, plopping onto the bench and crossing his legs, facing Richie. He’s wearing shorts again, and Richie doesn’t know how he isn’t fucking freezing. Richie plonks onto the bench and slips Eddie hands out of his. He’s wearing a fur lined denim jacket and his usual black jeans, but he’s suddenly cold all over. ‘Is that okay?’

Richie bites his lip and says, ‘I don’t fucking know’. Because, really, he doesn’t fucking know. This feels weird. Part of him once to fucking sing or dance out a musical number about how much he loves Eddie, but the other half of him wants to hide away in a hole and never let the words pass his lips. ‘Fucking stupid,’ he grumbles, kicking his boots out onto the grass.

Eddie rolls his eyes. ‘Shut up, douchebag. Look, what’s wrong?’

The words bubble in his throat like fucking dishwater; swirling about until they come pouring out of his mouth. He stares at the ground, hands clasped on his lap and fuck he needs a cig, before he’s breathing in deeply splurging out his fucked up proclamation of affection. ‘I just…just really fucking love you, Ed’s. Like love. In love. I’m in love with you. Fuck. Yeah. Shit’.

There’s a moment of silence and then Eddie is uncrossing his legs and clambering across the bench and grabbing Richie’s face in his pale, delicate hands that are kind of dry from the amount of hand sanitizer he uses. He’s wrenching Richie to face him before Richie can even blush at his own words, his mouth pressing to Richie’s with an almost bruising kind of force.

‘Ow!’ Richie yelps, laughing and grabbing Eddie by the shoulders. ‘Shit, dude! I’m fucking delicate, you know?’ He laughs at Eddie’s bright red face, before pulling him back and kissing his cheeks with wet sounds that he knows annoys Eddie.

‘Ask me,’ Eddie demands, pulling back and glaring at Richie with a ferocity that makes Richie laugh. ‘Ask me!’

Richie sighs and stares into Eddie’s eyes oh-so dramatically. ‘Eddie Kaspbrak,’ he says grandly, whipping his long curls out of his face. ‘Light of my life. Do you love me?’

‘Yes, you fucking idiot,’ Eddie breathes.

The kiss he bestows upon Richie is gentler this time, and Richie doesn’t know if anything could ever feel so amazing. It’s the not the fact that someone loves him that makes his heart swell and his stomach twist. Nah.

It’s the fact that Eddie Kaspbrak loves him.


End file.
